Ensuring that M&A Documents and Negotiations Reflect Current Market Trends

After flirting with an all-time volume record over the first half of 2018, the M&A market weathered some headwinds before closing the year on a strong clip. Numerous legal developments played heavily in the market’s ebbs and flows, including tax reform, legislation expanding review of certain cross-border deals by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, Brexit and more. The deal market was even impacted by social and political trends, with, for instance, the #MeToo movement reflected in the emergence of the “Weinstein Clause” for purposes of protecting buyers from historical misconduct by a target’s directors and officers.

As the market changes, so too changes the nature of terms negotiated by companies engaged in corporate transactions. To survive in the ultra-competitive market for M&A services, attorneys need access to high-quality tools to help them keep up to speed on not only the big-picture economic and legal issues that impact deal-making, but also current standards in drafting and negotiating the fine print.

Staying Current on Developments in M&A

The Lexis Advance® service offers a unique aggregation of mergers and acquisitions–related current awareness content from must-read resources like Law360® Mergers & Acquisitions; New York Law Journal® and Delaware Business Court Insider from ALM; The Wall Street Journal®; and deal trackers like The Deal Pipeline, Mergerstat M&A Database and FactSet Flashwire.

For instance, to review the latest “Legal News” articles concerning developments in M&A law and the firms that service this industry:

• Use the Browse feature to navigate to the Corporate and M&A Practice Center.

• Within the Corporate and M&A Practice Center, simply click on M&A Legal News within the News & Analysis pod. Then choose View all M&A Legal News to review a comprehensive list of results from relevant legal news publications.

• Another unique source for information on key M&A legal developments is available through Lexis Practice Advisor®, via the Corporate and M&A Practice Area page’s “Client Alert Roundups”—research compendiums that combine a brief review of the issue with links to best-in-class law firm client alerts, Lexis Advance news articles and relevant Lexis Practice Advisor content.

 To find the latest Client Alert Roundups, look in the Key Developments pod and choose Trends & Insights, or go to the task menu, expand Trends & Insights and choose Client Alert Digests.

Expert M&A Forms & Practical Guidance

Lexis Practice Advisor offers a premium collection of model M&A form documents reflecting the latest market standards, as well as narrative guidance documents to provide background and how-to instructions, from a stable of 900+ attorneys currently in practice at top firms and companies.

• For instance, to locate the form Asset Purchase Agreement and supporting guidance, simply click on Acquisition Agreements in the task menu on the Lexis Practice Advisor Corporate and M&A Practice Area page and then choose Asset Purchase Agreement.

• Then, simply toggle between content types in the filters to the upper left of the page to review Practice Notes, Forms, Clauses, Checklists and an editorially curated collection of primary law related to this variety of transaction.

Access to Market Precedent

The powerful analytics and filtering technology of Intelligize® delivers an ease of access to filed M&A agreements that can help attorneys efficiently locate prior work product and evaluate market standards on deal language. Using the Agreements & Other Exhibits application in Intelligize, or the Transactions Search Powered by Intelligize integration points within the Lexis Practice Advisor Corporate and M&A Practice Area page, users can retrieve market precedent for close to 30 different types of M&A agreements.

• For instance, from the Lexis Practice Advisor Corporate and M&A Practice Area page, look for the Transactions Search Powered by Intelligize pod to the right of the screen. Choose M&A Agreements Search. This will launch Intelligize.

• Once you have signed in to Intelligize (or passed through this requirement if you have previously saved your sign-in information), you will be presented with a list of available M&A agreement pre-packaged search options. Simply choose the precedent type you’re seeking, click OK, and then leverage the filters to the left to narrow your search to match the particulars of your specific deal.

For more information and research assistance, please contact your LexisNexis® representative.

LexisNexis, Lexis Advance, Lexis Practice Advisor and the Knowledge Burst logo are registered trademarks of RELX Inc. Law360 is a registered trademark of Portfolio Media, Inc. Intelligize is a registered trademark of Intelligize, Inc. Other products or services may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.